December 2d.
“I have received your letter, and I regret very much that I can not grant the request you make. The pressure upon my time is such that I can not possibly undertake to read your book. There would be no use in my doing so, anyhow, for I tell you frankly it seems to me the situation you are in is just what you need. My advice to you is to be a man and face it. I do not see any reason why one person should be set free from the labor which all of us have to share; and I assure you that you are entirely mistaken if you think that an artist has nothing to expect but ruin from contact with the world, and with suffering and toiling humanity.”
Isn't that a slap in the face for you?
Great God, I think that is the most insulting thing that has ever happened to me in all my days. “Set free from the labor which all of us have to share!”—What do you think I am—a tramp, or a loafer, you hound!
“A high challenge from an artist's soul!”
I think I never had so much hatred in my heart in all my life as I have to-day. Oh, my God, what a thing this world is! What stupid, blind brutality, what hideous vulgarity! This man a clergyman! And this is his faith, his nobility, his understanding!
Why, I came out of the forest with my naked heart in my hands! I came out quivering with emotion, melting with love and with trust for all men! I came all sensitive and raw—hungering for sympathy and kindness! And oh, my soul!—my God!—you have beaten me and kicked me as if I were a filthy cur!
Had I not offered up my heart for a sacrifice? Had I not burned it with fire? Had I not made all my being one consecration? And all for men, for men! For men I had torn myself—lashed myself—killed myself—for men I had forgotten what self was—yes, literally that—forgotten what self was! So little self had I left that I was willing to ask favors! So much consecration had I, so much trust, that I would beg! I had wept—I had suffered—I had starved! I had dreamed and sung, toiled until I set fire to my very brain! And you have beaten me and kicked me as if I were a filthy cur!
Those thoughts turn my whole soul into one wild curse! Have done with laying bare your heart to men, have done with telling your life to men! Why should you go on trying to be a poet, go on putting your secret soul into books, to be spurned at by the rabble? Your soul is your own—it is your God's—and what have the rabble to do with it! And all its tenderness! all its shrinking ecstasy! all its holiest consecration!—You will take them out to sell them to the rabble!
When will you get back into yourself, you fool? When will you have learned your lesson, and let this hellish world boot you out of its way no more? Let ever any man know a gleam of your heart again!—see one trace of your joy!